Abernathy Supports Family-Friendly Tiers

3/18/2004 3:04 PM Eastern

By: Ted Hearn

Federal Communications Commission member Kathleen Abernathy supports the creation of family-friendly cable-programming tiers to accommodate parents who don't want to pay for indecent programming they end up blocking electronically.

"As a consumer, I don't want to pay for things I don't want," Abernathy told reporters Thursday. "It would seem to me that there must be a market for cable packages where you pick 10 or 15 choices, or you pick 15 or 20."

Abernathy said she's not about to push for regulations and she does not favor an a la carte approach. But she indicated that the cable industry would help itself by giving consumers more power in the selection of their programming choices.

"It does seem to me that if you look at what's going on on Capitol Hill, this would be a market response that a lot of us would embrace," she added, referring to a Senate bill that nearly required the FCC to police cable indecency.

"I would probably spend more if I had that kind of choice than if my choice is you either take it all or nothing," she said.